UWAS 2021-2022

When Maria started as university teacher in the UWAS program at Aalto University (2021), the workshop was included into the transdisciplinary studies portfolio of the Art Design and Architecture school. It was proposed as a MA course, and taught along with Tommi Ollikainen, artist and yoga instructor who had been part of the Co-laboratory group.

In this setting the workshop offered a space for students of varied disciplines to explore the role of the body in creating knowledge, in professional practice, and in shaping personal experience. The course used experiential embodied learning exercises to examine how bodies are regarded and shape students’ disciplinary practices. Supported in theoretical readings, students discussed process-based artistic research in connection with concepts introduced by new materialist and feminist perspectives. The training promoted awareness on how students relate to their bodies, ecosystems and knowledge, and illuminated the ways they approach the world in the artworks, science or technology they produce. The EKW stressed as well bodily awareness as means to open new perspectives for building a more humane and sustainable world.

As final assignment for the course, students created individual experiments connected to the workshop methods and submitted a written reflection linked with their artistic, scientific and academic projects. The positive response of students led to a second edition six months later for UWAS, this time with guest artists Janina Rajakangas, Kira O’Reilly and dancer Carolina Paulino teaching specific modules.

Student feedback

“I have very much enjoyed --- and been challenged by --- the exercises we’ve done throughout the workshop. I feel that they have gently guided me towards releasing some stiffness and boundaries that I’ve carried within me for a long time, and I have slowly started to open myself up to ‘being where I am --- more intensely’, as Massumi could put it. I’m very happy I had a chance to participate in this workshop so early on. Its topics, experiments and discussions have offered valuable perspective to my main subject; while working with living spaces, it is crucially important to remember that we are never alone but constantly changing and connected to the world through our sensing bodies. I believe that all my peers --- and the field in general --- would benefit from such thinking.” ---Johana Salmela, Landscape Architecture BA, Aalto, 2021

“This course has felt important and beneficial for this phase in my thinking, artistic work and also personal life. Embodied knowledge and the body itself is a theme that cuts through every aspect of life and this course has shed light for me to be more able to see that. It’s not something to take for granted that a course leaves a feeling of being super curious and filled with questions to be explored. This course has deepened my interest in embodied knowledge and its relation to space.” ---Minna Kujala, Graphic Design MA, Aalto, 2021

“In my studies I sought to find ways of using the ‘silent’ knowledge accumulated through my profession in academic inquiry. Maria has a vast understanding of the theoretical discourse connected to embodied knowledge. Moreover she has an extensive toolkit of creative methods through which she guides her students into the intersections of theory and lived experience. As a teacher Maria is engaged and generous. Her body of knowledge is political and deep, and experimental. I hope that many students will get the chance to learn from this workshop.” ---Max Pennanen, UWAS, Aalto 2021-2022, Finland

“The incorporation of lectures, group exercises and peer discussions has encouraged the study group to learn from one another, creating a safe learning space in which we students became active participants rather than passive recipients of knowledge. This approach has helped increase my critical thinking and also given me tools to develop my own personal writing skills. I am confident that my sentiments are shared by many other students.” ---Cyane Findji, MA student, France, 2024